1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the monitoring of social networking traffic.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that emotions can profoundly affect individual behavior and decision-making Studies in behavioral economics exist studying the impact of emotions on an individual's actions. Other studies have relied on one-dimensional models of public mood, measuring a positive versus a negative sentiment, to study the affect of emotions on public actions.
Early research regarding predicting stock market trends was based on random walk theory and an Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), supporting a proposition that stock market prices are in great part driven by new information such as news rather than present and past prices. As news is unpredictable, and as stock market prices were believed to follow a random walk pattern, the proposition led to a theory that the prices cannot be predicted with more than fifty percent accuracy.
However, numerous studies have shown that stock market prices may be predicted to a degree that is more than 50 percent and do not follow a random walk pattern. The studies have not investigated public mood from a multi-dimensional model approach to derive information with which to, in particular, predict stock market trends.
What is needed is an improvement over the foregoing.